Massive crisis again: Half of India powerless

New Delhi: The entire northern and eastern India faced blackout on Tuesday afternoon after the power grid serving the two regions failed within minutes of each other. The north-eastern grid was also partially hit.

The failure of the grid has hit over 10 states which include Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, West Bengal Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said that alternative arrangements are being made to restore power supply to essential services.

The Power Grid Corporation, which manages power transmission in the country, said that it will be at least two hours before power is restored.

The second consecutive day of power failure in Northern India has hit the entire region with even trains on the Indian Railway network hit. Around 200 trains are believed to be stuck en-route across the region.

In all around 300-400 trains have come to a standstill in the country.

The situation is serious in national capital, Delhi, where most areas are facing a blackout with even Metro train service coming to a standstill.

As per reports, some trains on the underground section of the city’s lifeline are stuck inside tunnels. Many traffic signals have also failed in the city leading to traffic jams.

Hospitals including the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) are operating on backup power.

The situation is similar in Chandigarh, Lucknow, Jammu and other cities in the region. The states in North India that are facing outage are Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh.

Eastern Grid trips

The situation is no better in eastern states like west Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha.
As per reports there is no power in the eastern metropolis, Kolkata, severely affecting metro and tram services.

The situation is equally bad in Patna, Ranchi and Bhubaneswar.

Major thermal power plants in the region like Kahalgaon, Talcher, Farakka have tripped.

Northeast region was also hit by the power crisis with blackouts being reported from Assam and Sikkim. More details are awaited on the situation in the region.

On Monday, seven states in the northern region saw power trip off at 2.32 am due to a major breakdown in the Northern Grid - an interconnected transmission network that delivers electricity from various power generating stations to distribution utilities.

The power trip had occurred near Agra, the city of the Taj Majal, but officials were unable to say what caused the massive breakdown.

Today also, the fault is believed to have originated from the same location.

Last time such a crisis took place was in 2001, when it took 16 hours to restore normalcy.